I stood in my parents’ shower, chin to my chest, tears mixing with the foamy shampoo as they both criss-crossed like slalom skiers down my face. “At least there’s always death.” The thought slid into my mind and coiled tight around my throbbing despair like a boa constrictor — a false and deceptive hug. But for the first time in weeks, I sighed relief. Yes, at least there’s always death.
My days went like this. Wake up. Panic. Cry. Panic. Shower. Shake. Cry. Shake. Meditate. Nothing. Lay. Panic. Google. Google. Google. Force feed. Distract. Google. Panic. Exhaustion. Sleep. I lived in a repetitive tumble in the washing machine of my own mind, my thoughts never fully drying but instead dripping onto one another, fueling the cold dampness over and over and over again. Every second felt like agony as I lived in fear of losing my sanity. I didn’t want to die, but didn’t I? What did being alive mean if this was what being alive meant?
When things were at their worst, I didn’t leave my bed for hours at a time. I stayed curled in a ball, my breathing fast and shallow, something my dad later coined as “bunny breathing.” I’d try to reason with my mind, will it to pass. I begged. I bartered. I tried to “get over it.” I utilized those hotlines well-meaning nurses and counselors give you, right after they remind you to “surround yourself with loved ones” and that “you can always come back to the E.R. if you’re feeling unsafe.” And while they helped in the moment, I was just maintaining. Just surviving. I became a shell of the outgoing, driven, self-sufficient 27 year old woman I knew I was. I mourned the loss of her. I woke up in the morning and was reminded of how far gone she was. Soon, I didn’t even remember who she was.
I started to make lists for myself. Small goals to strive for, no matter how dissociated, how panicked, how exhausted I was. I’d write them down at night, leave them on the nightstand, wake up and read them in the morning. Things like take a shower. Do the dishes. Put on mascara. Send one email. These were Herculean tasks for me. So when I decided one Thursday that my goal of the day was to take my dogs for a walk from the house to the red barn on my parents’ property, I was terrified. What if I panic when I’m in the woods? What if I dissociate so much I forget where I am? Whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif? Instead, I walked halfway down the trail, threw my head back and screamed until my voice cracked. (Super casual, normal Thursday afternoon stuff). But something broke through the fog that day. I wish it had punched through the door, leaving splinters and debris in its path — but instead it sounded like a timid knock.
Still, I was in there.
Time trudged on. Things got worse. Things got better. Things got worse again. Things stayed level. And then things got really, really bad. How I began true recovery is another story for another time, one I intend to tell in hopes that it will help someone who needs it. But for right now, to anyone reading this that finds themselves at their lowest low — I promise this is not forever. Nothing is. Not even this. So please, don’t make any permanent decisions. Not right now. You are in there, too. And you can win.
As I started to regain my strength and as the stress hormones slowly loosened their grip on my rational thinking brain, I started to discover the silver linings of it all. Big things, little things and things that might only mean something to me. That’s the one cool thing about obsessively thinking about death. Surviving it comes with a heaping side effect of clarity.
I learned that people really mean it when they say they care. That I am more important than what I accomplish in a day. That my mother meant it when she said she’d do anything for me. That sobbing while September by Earth, Wind & Fire plays on the radio is one of the funniest things I’ve ever done (I mean, come on. Picture it). That the future means so much more to me after being convinced I wouldn’t have one. That I can stop pretending I enjoy going out on Friday nights.
I learned that there might be no better feeling than that slightly sunburned, crispy-skin feeling after being in the sun all day long. That befriending two little snot-nosed, dirty-parka’ed kids at the dog park can make your heart physically swell. I learned that anger is a waste of time, and that my dad hurts when I hurt. I learned that the crinkles in the corners of my grandpa’s eyes when he smiles are the cumulation of a lot of years spent never giving up.
I learned that everything can wait. And that love is ordering Chinese takeout and bringing it to your girlfriend in the psych ward. I learned that I can still belly laugh when I’m sad and that music sounds better after you’ve felt the full range of human emotions. I learned that there are so many people that are smarter than me and that I should let them help me. I learned that there are so many people that will steer me wrong and that I should trust my gut.
Most importantly, I learned that everyone else is fucking sad, too. And no shit we’re all sad, you try being a person. The worst thing we can do is not talk about it. It’s killing us. And so many people suffer in silence. Which is why my biggest lesson through all of this has been compassion.
Because something shifts inside of you after every fact you thought you had down pat gets flipped upside down and shaken up like a snow globe. It just has to. The pieces eventually fall back into place as the glitter and snowflakes settle, but something is always going to be just a little bit different. Off-center. Or maybe re-centered — depends on how you look at it. But the idea that the hell you just endured could be, or rather, almost certainly is happening to someone else makes you see everything so much differently. There’s no going back to the way you were before because now you’re walking around with this heartbreaking, heavy knowledge that someone else is hurting just like you right this very second. Depressingly unifying, to say the least.
But luckily, there is compassion. And compassion has the power to turn someone who wants to die into someone who wants to live.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1–800–273–8255
Crisis Text Line: Text CONNECT to 741741
